Our adventures & anecdotes living in Geneva Switzerland

Menu

Category Archives: Travel: Within Switzerland

This post is dedicated to all the travelers out there. We often get inquiries about our favorite places that we have visited outside of the US. Before we forget, we wanted to leave detailed notes on our top picks in rank order. Instead of putting it as a post and making it impossibly long to scroll through, we have created a new page on the site here. You can find it in the future on the top menu of the blog. We pledge to continually update it through our travels!

Last weekend, we actually split up to experience some of our bucket list items remaining.

Gabe skied with Finnish friend A at Les Contamines, France for the day. With my feet still not up to par for skiing, I opted for a scenic train to Rochers-de-Naye.

The guys enjoyed the day at Les Contamines, with sunny skies and great slopes.

Views at Les Contamines

I also enjoyed my day on the train at at Rochers-de-Naye. One of the things that I love about living here is how much people take advantage of beautiful days. I talked about this mentality in my “Profiter” post, but here are just a few examples of what I saw at the main station on the way out to my day trip:

Skiers and hikers of all ages, ready to board the train

The reason I selected Rochers-de-Naye is because of its 2000m position at the far end of Lake Geneva. I heard the views were magnificent and you could see almost the entire lake from the summit. Having confirmed sunny skies, I set off on the two hour journey.

I quickly learned that sunny skies at Rochers-de-Naye and sunny skies over Lake Geneva were two different things:

Evidence of the permacloud. Lake Geneva is below the layer.

Nonetheless, I thought the ambience was pretty neat with the mysterious cover. Despite my ill preparations of not wearing snow shoes (oops), I had fun seeing the mountains.

Gorgeous views @ Rochers-de-Naye

I didn’t happen to notice anything peculiar about the above scene. However, when I was showing my French teacher, she commented….”ah, Mount Cervin”. If you look at the pointed mountain in the distance of the photo, that is the infamous Matterhorn. Wish the view was this clear when we were in Zermatt!

Also of note, the summit hosts 7 Mongolian yourts, which each sleep 8 people. The ski slopes are only steps from the little huts, so you can easily ski from your doorstep in the winter, or hike in the summer.

Yourt with blue door

Yourt with red door

After about 2 hours, I got a little break in the clouds to envision what the view would look like on a clear day.

The blue of Lake Geneva starting to show

We are both grateful for the beautiful weekend to experience some of our final must-do’s!

Shortly after moving to Switzerland, we made a trip to Gruyères to taste cheese and visit the village. During our cheese tour I came across a promotional offer for Swiss cheeses.

“receive a free cheese knife with four swiss cheese proof of purchase and 20 francs”

It immediately caught my eye because this promotion wasn’t for just any cheese knife. It was for the ultimate utilitarian cheese knife made by Swiss Army. Complete with cheese blade, cerated bread blade and, of course, corkscrew bottle opener. I knew immediately I had to have it.

Given my penchant for cheese, it took no time at all to collect enough proofs of purchase to send away for my knife. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when dropping the envelope into the mail. Did I translate the offer correctly? How long would it take? Would I ever see my Swiss Army cheese knife?

But with the precision of a Swiss watch, my cheese knife arrived in the mail less than two weeks later. With the eagerness and awe of a small boy I opened my package. I didn’t image that such a treasure could be had so easily!

The box

The anticipation builds

And….cheese knife!

Blades for cheese and bread

Corkscrew for wine

Since that time it has gotten lots of use during our time in Geneva…picnics at the lake, road trip snacks, train ride meals with family/friends and, most recently, ski weekend meals in the mountains.

The French Cougar using the knife on the Glacier Express

So don’t forget to ask to see the cheese knife the next time you see me. I am always happy to show off my new toy.

This Gratitude Friday goes out to UNESCO. I actually had no clue what UNESCO was before we moved to Geneva. However, because of the sheer volume of places in Europe, it became something of note during our travels. UNESCO helps identify and protect the places in the world that are most important to humans, both culturally and naturally. There are currently 962 places in the world on the list. Roughly 80% are cultural while 20% are natural.

How wonderful that there is an organization which makes it their mission to preserve and recognize these sites? While sites like the Notre Dame in Paris might not have trouble gaining support, think about those in underdeveloped countries like Angkor Wat in Cambodia that can now have the financial and administrative resources to preserve and protect these special sites for the world to appreciate?

And also, I wanted to express our thankfulness for being able to visit over 30 new UNESCO sites during our time as ex-pats. This is something that neither one of us thought we would do in a 1.5 year span. While our travels will be slowing down with our move back to the US, I wanted to find a way to archive the sites that we had been to, both before this experience, and then after.

So, I have created a page in the main menu of the blog listing Our UNESCO Tracker. I’ll keep this up in the future as well.

Drinking in public isn’t a big deal in Europe. We are constantly reminded of this with our guests. We bring along a bottle of wine to a picnic or on a train and they ask us, “you can’t actually drink that here, can you?”. The answer is yes. Europeans are far more lax about things like this. As a result, there are actually far less drunk people because it isn’t so taboo. In fact, the Swiss can start drinking wine and beer at 16. It’s 18 for hard liquor. And, we have never seen drunk teens.

Here are a few photographic reasons to further demonstrate the point:

Recently, in Italy, we had a glass of champagne at a risotto fair. They gave us cloth glass holders to string around our neck so that we could take it “to go”. This has become my favorite new accessory.

Me with my champagne glass necklace, walking around town

They put reminders up about the legal drinking age:

Babies can’t drink in public.

However, some don’t pay attention.

Before….

After….

Sorry little guy. You have to wait a few years.

And, those ‘on duty’ don’t mind enjoying a cold one.

This guy might have just had his 16th birthday

People drink in random places. It is most common on the bus to see a guy in a suit enjoying a beer on his way home from work. I prefer this photo of a lady in her 70’s opening up her bottle she purchased grocery shopping and drinking it out of the bottle at the bus stop. There is no time like the present.

It’s 5 o’ clock somewhere.

Here’s hoping that this New Years Day, you didn’t have too much to drink!

When we lived in The States, we frequently had “Happy Hour”. Whether it was with colleagues or friends, it was common to get together after work, enjoy a drink and catch up. In the US, it is also common for bars and establishments to have Happy Hour Specials such as dollar beers or half priced glasses of wine, etc.

In France, they have a similar tradition, however usually without the discount. We’ve had the pleasure of experiencing them before but while in Morzine for Christmas, we feel like we’ve really gotten a lot of practice!

The first is “L’Apero”, or The Apero. L’Apero is the French bridge between your normal busy day and the start of the evening. Enjoying an ‘aperitif’ before dinner is classified as a gesture of health or well-being, to start your appetite. The typical aperitif consists of : champagnes, martinis, vermouths, sherries, or a light or sweet white wines, as well as small snacks like olives, chips or nuts. A fruit juice is also an alternative to the alcoholic beverages.

Having Champagne for an aperitif

In ski towns, the apero has a fun spin in terms of the “Après Ski”. Literally translated, it means ‘after the ski’. Crowds gather at the most popular bars to start the night. Here the drink selections are more broad, including beers and mixed drinks.

The Après Ski buzz

Enjoying the Après Ski with friends, including a special birthday celebration

Finally, after dinner, it is common in France and other European countries to be served a digestif. Many times this is included with the meal, and is intended to help your food settle. In Greece, it is raki or ouza. In Italy, many times it is limoncello. Here in France, we had homemade apple and pear liquor as well as a hot rum digestif.

While I have heard of “the night cap”, an alcoholic beverage consumed before going to bed, in the US, I typically know it as a sleep aid vs. a digestive aid.

It sure is hard to do this research, but we are happy to do it for the benefit of the blog! Happy New Years Eve, everyone!!

Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I realize that we live in Switzerland. We love getting to experience a completely new way of life and new customs. This past weekend was no exception, when we attended the Semsales Desalpe Festival.

What is a Desalpe you might ask? In Switzerland, the cows happily live in the Alps in the summer, munching away on the greenest of grassy pastures. However, the cold snowy temperatures that come in the winter are even too harsh for Swiss cattle. So every Fall, the happy Swiss cows come down from their summer home in the high Alps to their lower grassy pastures and barns.

Most small villages celebrate their return home with a Desalpe Festival, literally translated, “from the Alps”.

We attended the festival in the town of Semsales, in the canton of Fribourg, near Gruyeres. This festival is special because of its spacing. Typically, all the herds are condensed in one parade. However, in Semsales, each group gets the individual spotlight. From 10:00 in the morning until 18:00 in the evening, a total of 14 families march through town proudly, welcoming their herd home for the winter.

We got quite an awakening to the procession when parking our car. Literally, one of the herds came into us!

Well, hello there.

Walking into town, we got to see quite a few more processions. The first few cows wear very tall ornamentation. Sort of like Christmas trees on their heads:

Nope – not Christmas in October. Just the Desalpe festival!

Then comes the more subdued cows….smaller floral arrangements.

This lady has a classier look going on. But what she looses in floral prowess, she makes up in cowbell size. Holy cow.

Moo-ve over and get out of my way, lady.

Just an everyday walk on the highway

In addition to the cows, groups of musicians were also a special part of the Desalpe. We enjoyed the cowbell group:

The cowbell band

Handling their bells. The muscles on these folks have to be strong!

We really enjoyed the Alphorn band

They also have delicious cheese and meat based foods.

This was a super big pot of cheesy potatoes

Local meat, cheeses, and breads for lunch. Plus some nice red wine from the nearby vineyards.

If you are attending a Desalpe, just make sure to wear old shoes or maybe even some wellies. You are most certainly going to step in something nasty.

Hey lady, maybe you want to keep your baby out of the cow poo

I thought this was my best picture of the day until I realized what was happening.

For a more interesting visual, check out the video footage from our day at the Desalpe: